Month: June 2019

When we landed in Koh Samui we had about 8 hours before the rest of our traveling team arrived, so we planned to go 4 wheeling as a family. It was a gamble, but the place had great reviews and we could hire the airport pickup driver for the morning and he could take us directly to the ATV place and then on to our villa.

It turned out to be one of the most fun things we’ve ever done. It was a bit scary (for me) and hard work controlling the the ATV as it bucked and bumped over anything in its path (for me), but the guides did a great job of going at a pace where we could all be successful and increasing speed and difficulty of terrain as we got more comfortable. This video is from the beginning, before things started getting crazy with climbing straight up rocky paths and before I high-centered on a rock in the middle of a creek (no big deal, the guide straightened me out and we were back on track.)

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What more can I say? It was muddy, fast fun. We were too busy navigating to take many photos, but our guide stopped a few times to get snapshots of us.

We also cruised right by some huge water buffalo, some grazing and others up to their necks in mud. The best animal sighting of the day was when an old man on a moped passed us and his monkeys leaned out of his sidecar baskets and waved (they train them to gather coconuts).

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No one needs to watch a 2 minute video of ATVs rolling along, but it’s here anyway. Caleb is in front behind the guide, then Carter in yellow, then Calvin, me in purple, and Josh and Meels in the back. This is all early on, before we started climbing over rocks and through ravines.

I love his enthusiasm for adventure.

After falling in love with scuba diving all over again, Carter is now training to qualify for Navy dive school after he graduates next year. And when one brother demonstrates feats of strength, the others jump to best each other. The task this morning was a 500 meter swim, 2 min of pushups, 2 minutes of sit-ups and a mile and a 1/2 run. Each event had its own time cap. They’ve also challenged each other to treading water while holding bricks above the water. The games never end around here.And of course they gathered to watch the Warriors (lose) before breakfast.

The big kids went off on a scuba diving day so we planned an activity for the ones who weren’t old enough (or who were too chicken to test the limits of their ears {me}).

Elephants and Thailand go hand in hand, but as a tourist, the relationship is complicated, since many of the places to interact with elephants are for the benefit of the tourists and not the elephants, especially places that offer rides.

We heard about this place called the Elephant Care Center and decided to give it a try. Pay to feed and wash an elephant and support humane care? We thought we’d give it a go.

We had an 8:30 pickup and they were right on time. We piled in the back of an open pickup truck with bench seats along the side and a sunshade over the top, feeling like we were heading off on safari in Jurassic Park.

About 45 minutes later, much longer than we expected, as we headed away from the jungle and into the center of town, we wondered how there could be an elephant sanctuary on the same street as a Muy Thai gym and a scooter mechanic shop. Hmmm.

We pulled into a parking lot and 4 more people piled in the back of the truck. The driver gave us each a sticker with the number 42 written on it so we could find the right vehicle later. I guess for the ride home? As he closed the back gate he said, “next stop: Grandmother and Grandfather Rock.” Say what now? Another stop on the way to the Elephant Care center? I guess we’re getting a bonus sightseeing stop on the way.

Until we arrived in a parking lot and saw several other trucks all unloading to hike out to the beach to view the rocks — my friend, who has a 5 month old baby and was not inclined to hike out to see some rocks that look vaguely like private parts, called the driver over and said, “Wait a minute. We are signed up for the elephants.”

“Ohhh! That’s a different tour! Hold on a minute. We will call.” Five minutes later we were back on the road, bouncing our way back toward the hills to see the elephants, laughing hysterically at how we had no idea what we were doing and hoping the driver did.

When we got to the elephants we were an hour late, so we missed posed photos with the elephants (no big loss), but came just in time to cook for and feed the elephants. It was really fun and even if they aren’t quite free, they appear to be well cared for and they get bathed twice a day by well meaning tourists.

Mixing up rice and squash so it can be stuffed inside a banana.

Elephant mouths are big, sticky suction cups — hurry and toss in the bananas! (The guy kept telling us to feed her faster — maybe she gets mad if she has to wait?)

After eating its bath time: first the elephants get mud rubbed on their skin, then it gets scrubbed down with a bristle brush. The elephants lie down with the end of their trunks above water level, like a snorkel. The guides called out “hey coconut!” when the elephants pooped in the water and one lady picked it up, thinking it was a floating coconut. Then they had the elephants suck up water and spray it at people, catching us all by surprise.

After elephant care and a few episodes of When Animals (almost) Attack (some of the people were way too comfortable with these gigantic wild animals), it was time for lunch (included with the tour). The guy said we would move over to the restaurant for a cooking show and lunch, but then the trucks appeared and all the elephant people started waving goodbye. I guess we were driving over to a Thai restaurant in town?

30 minutes later as we were traversing up the side of a mountain with the truck hugging one side of the road and then the other to avoid huge potholes and washed out areas of road we were a bit concerned, but laughing so hard it hurt. What kind of restaurant would be up in the middle of nowhere? This is all we could see upon arrival. It was very beautiful, but very remote.

We had no idea where this restaurant was … all we could see were trees. And Sarah was taking a photo of my pants that I put on inside out after elephant baths. The entire morning was a comedy of errors.

All’s well that ends with good Thai food! We must have been at someone’s house, in their garden. I still can’t believe they drove us all the way out there just to eat. Our elephant care crew!

We headed home, hoping our driver knew where to take us since he said “hotel,” we said, “no, villa. Not a hotel” and he laughed. Thankfully he knew the way and we made it home without any detours. And it started pouring on the drive home. Normally that might be a downer, but it was perfect because we had a cover overhead and only got a little wet. All of us desert dwellers love a surprise rain shower.

We made it … whew! I don’t love the process of traveling, but I’m always thankful that I expended the effort once we arrive. We flew overnight from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok on a very large, very full plane — we were all the way back in row 50 and not an empty seat in sight. I don’t know how many were on board, but since there were rows of 10 in economy, I figure at least 300. And 20% of them walked the aisles all night, talking and chatting like it was a party bus.

So, minimal sleep for me. Not like I could have slept much anyway since I’m not relaxed when traveling: I don’t eat, I pretend to sleep, hoping my body will get the hint, and just endure, ticking away the minutes, hour by hour. I would love to love flying, but the years of anxiety and airplane phobia have left their mark on me, so I can do it, but am always happier to get that part over with.

Last time we made this trip we had to sprint to make our connection because our first leg landed late. We made lots of jokes during trip planning that we did not want to repeat the Bangkok sprint. We thought we’d be ok this time, but upon landing, I had to be that person: from back in row 50, “excuse me, our next flight is boarding now. So sorry, excuse me.” Which worked until a lady feigned language problems and said “I don’t understand” and froze me out.

That’s ok, TeamChartier can run. So as soon as we freed ourselves from the tube we took off. I couldn’t even tell you how far it was, but we passed or ran on at least 10 of those long flat escalators with stretches in between — we ran forever.

I snapped this photo because it was so funny and ridiculous that we were having to run this same stretch of airport all over again. But we persisted and would have made it — except we hit a wall of people at passport control.

One asset I’ve developed living in the Middle East is to assert myself as a special person. It feels rude to my wait-your-turn American self, but where we live, if you don’t do it, someone else will and you’ll lose out. So I found every person wearing a uniform and pointed out the time on our boarding passes to each official until one lady finally said, “OK, 2 of you come with me.”

She took us past the line to an unopened counter, processed us, and sent us on to security where Camille and I slipped past the bottleneck into the shorter line and snuck our bin onto the conveyer belt in front of a guy who was slow with his shoes. And then more running: around the corner, through the gift shop, all the way to the end of the terminal, down the stairs and there was our gate, with the last bus idling, waiting to leave.

Panting, we passed her our passports and boarding passes and said we had 4 more still coming. Over the next 5 minutes we stalled while the rest of our team trickled in.

I was relieved to have all 6 of us finally seated onboard. We had a date with some ATVs upon landing in Koh Samui and I didn’t want to spend the morning waiting on a plane instead of wheeling through the jungle.

And to complete the circle, the other half of our group had to run to catch the same flight later in the day. My friend said next time she flies to Bangkok, she’s staying there. No more running!